This afternoon, I finally had a chance to get back to the motor. I was able to secure a good work surface for the project ( a woodworking bench, 4' x 6', with a vise ), which is now beside the boat, ready to accept my old A4 and all of its various components.

My goal today was to continue disassembling the motor, reducing its weight to a point where it can be off loaded with the least amount of effort.

First the starter, then the flywheel.

lots of rust...

you can see the rust line showing how deep the engine was under the standing water

super rusty, and you can see a spot on the bottom of the housing where some MMO leaked out. Can anyone give me a clue as to where this was coming from?? odd (to me).

I didn't really need to remove the plate, but i wanted a look at the valves, and figured you all might too... Anything of interest here?

another look.

My last effort was to detach the prop shaft from the motor, but the access was tricky, and I wasn't able to get a a boxed end wrench on the nuts. My time was up ( had to get home to go get our tree! ), and I hosed them with PB Blaster a couple times before I left.

With any luck, I will get back to it tomorrow, and possibly have the motor out of the boat. I am excited about getting it out, finally, for many reasons beyond the obvious ones... The engine compartment is nasty, as I'm sure you can imagine, and it needs heavy cleaning. I also hope to repaint it with grey bilge paint...

and yours might actually be in better shape. The valves look pretty good to me but I'm not expert on this.
The flywheel, well, all that rust may indicate more rust in the oil and cooling passages. The rust buildup could be why the MMO is dripping out by the flywheel. I've seen the cylinders filled up with rust and it ain't pretty.
You will know more when you can take the head off and check the gears, cams, rods etc. in the engine and tranny. Hopefully you can save this one if it isn't too far gone.
PB Blaster is your friend.

Today was interesting, to say the least. I monkeyed my way back into the starboard quarter berth to get at the shaft coupling and detach it. Kind of a pain in the ass, but not nearly as much as the last mounting bolt (aft bolt, under the water pump). It was frozen pretty well and corroded badly. Thanks to my ol' buddy PB Blaster and two sets of vice grips, my motor finally came free of its mount!!

prop shaft detached

So this was exciting, as this was the next step toward my goal of getting the motor down to a bench beside the boat, but not nearly as exciting as the discoveries I made later. With the engine now free, I began further disassembly. I double nutted the remaining studs left in the block (most of them), and was able to get them all out hassle free. **one thing I noticed today, and through the whole process thus far, is the over all ease with which the various bolts and studs have been removed from my VERY rusty and corroded motor.** And this makes sense to me now. BECAUSE : my oil pan was indeed rusted all the way through, after all !! Therefore, all the oil contained in the oil pan was floating around the motor in the water. AND the entire motor, and engine compartment, is covered in this sticky black oil scale. It is flaky where dried, but also gooey and rich where it settled in pockets and crevices. In some ways, I believe it definitely helped this particular engine from getting more rotten than it did! unbelievable. The hole through the oil pan is crazy. It is such a distinct shape, it looks like someone took an oxy-acetylene torch and cut it out.

here is the piece of the oilpan that rotted out

After seeing this, I was truly concerned about what else I would find inside the A4. Next step : reversing gear housing. Again all of the bolts came free fairly easily, save just one that I sheared the head off of. I had already taken the cover, off and it showed more rust, of course.

first look inside the reversing gear cover

I decided to leave the propeller drive coupling on, and after removing all the bolts, worked my way around with screwdrivers, and lastly a flatbar.

Holy smokes! I never would have believed that without seeing it. I have to say that seeing that level of corrosion makes me a lot less confident in the chances of reviving this one. Still, you won't know what's there and what you are facing until it's all broken down and cleaned up a bit. Good luck!

Yikes!!! and objects always look better in pictures than in real life!! This is going to be a whole lot bigger project than a rebuild. That oil pan doesn't look rusted through, it looks more like frozen and broken through.

1. I bet there was water in the oil pan right at that area, and it froze, which cracked that little section right out of the pan. Wild!

2. I still think this engine is recoverable. It will, obviously, require a complete and total, every-last-nut-and-bolt teardown. I would buy a half-dozen wire wheels for my drill press. I use my drill press more for wire wheeling rusty bits than anything else. All of those gears that look so awful and rusty now will clean up just fine, I'd bet.

Here's a little "before - n - after" shot to give you the general idea:

3. You will have to completely disassemble the reversing gear assembly. I would, based on what that looks like. You might want to get Don's DVD on that project - it goes into more detail than the Overhaul Manual does.

I still believe that with a proper and determined application of elbow grease (and some $$ in new parts), that engine will clean up and will run again.

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- Bill T.
- Richmond, VA

Q: How many politically-correct people does it take to screw in a light bulb?

I'm with Bill on the benefits of wire-wheeling and elbow grease. You'd be amazed at what can be revived, and with something with such loose tolerances as the A4, I think you'll be golden, once you source the accoutrements. (Oil pan/alt/carb/etc.)

Quick thing about that example pic though...If you can afford new bolts, use new bolts. That's something I picked up doing race engines...it's honestly probably not going to matter that much on a 30hp boat engine, but it won't hurt either.

And lastly, thanks for the thread! This is getting me all riled up to give a go at the old A4 that's been sitting in my driveway for 3 months.

Quick thing about that example pic though...If you can afford new bolts, use new bolts.

I agree. I did re-use a bunch of bolts after a thorough cleaning, but I also replaced a lot that were pitted and crappy-looking. Those shown above are for the valve cover plate, and after I cleaned that one, I ended up buying the Moyer stud and nut kit, which makes it way easier to put the plate back on.

In some cases, I replaced the old, very soft bolts with stronger ones - probably the best example of this is the two small bolts that hold the camshaft into the crankcase. They are made of peanut-butter or something, because it is ridiculously easy to twist the heads off. After I did that to one, and fortunately managed to get the remaining bit of bolt out of the hole, I replaced them both with Grade 8 bolts.

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- Bill T.
- Richmond, VA

Q: How many politically-correct people does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Not much has happened since my last posting, but I wanted to say thanks for the encouragement, and good information... I've been actively looking for a donor motor, and have some leads, but nothing solid yet. I am on a very tight budget, and really hoping to find something in better shape than my rust bucket A4 - ideally for a few hundred bucks - and take the best parts from both. At a bare minimum, I will need an oil pan, and probably a reversing gear... I still need to get further into cleaning up parts, before I know what is truly salvageable.

I have posted my search on FB, and also responded to CL ads in New England. I got an email reply today from a guy in NH with 3 A4's that is offering first refusal to some others, then me... I hope to hear back from him soon. If he ends up having more than what I need, I will post his information here...

In looking at your photos, I agree - there's definitely a lot of work and uncertainty in cleaning up all those rusty parts, and quite possibly a lot of unpredictable cost lurking too. It will probably be cheaper to start with an engine with more solid parts.

That said, Buck Anderson in Barstow, CA has a huge stack of oil pans from engines he's run across over the years. 760-253-1924. He's a rebuilder, not a parts supplier, but his oil pan collection is ginormous. I mean, like fifty or more. I have no idea how he'll ever get rid of all those things unless he's planning to start making body armor out of them.

searchtempest.com is great for searching craigslist by distance, as opposed to by region. Also, keep an eye on the classifieds here...that's where we found our new A4, and I know I'm not the only one...

Just got back from the boat. Finally got the motor off earlier this week with a friend, and today was the first opportunity I've had to get into it again. I have been searching high and low for the illusive, uber-cheap parts motor, but I think I've found it. I just got off the phone with Chappy, the forum member from Rockland, ME and made an agreement to purchase his freshly hot-tanked castings, and boxes of parts. I believe between his and my own, I can come up with a fully functional A4... I hope to go retrieve the parts this coming weekend...

With the beast on the bench, I was able to continue teardown. Much to my chagrin, I forgot the manual at home, so I wasn't able to take out the valves, but I moved on to the flywheel housing and oil pan. All of the bolts came out easily, save two that sheared off that were on the bottom of the oil pan.

beast on the bench

crazy but true

Once the pan was off, i turned the shaft over and it turned easily. I took a little video and am trying to upload it, but the site wont recognize a .mov file..

everything was very dirty, but overall, in good condition beneath a layer of 'oil scale'

oil strainer.

At the moment, I feel like my block is actually pretty good. I have yet to check tolerances, so we'll see once we put the mic. to all of the critical parts...

Question to all - if you were going to meld the two motors stated, what parts would you choose from which motor? I know this is a vague question at best, without all the information on spec.'s, but what do you think you would be inclined to do ??

Here is the link to my video. It is short and kind of silly, but shows the innards of my cruddy old motor turning over freely... Thanks for the YouTube tip, Loki ... I had a hard time embedding, tho ...

Thats about how bad my motor was inside, as a hurricane surge flooded it,in a guys garage.
Anyway, Don't be surprised to find the crank journals to need grinding,
I had to go .020 undersize on the mains,because of the rust that left pits in the crank.
At first I saw no pits, just black areas in places, and after cleaning them really well,,, they were pits....

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Tyring to keep the Bay's Wooden Boat's history from dying off completely.
Daniel

Not to discourage you, because things look different in real life than photos, but I wouldn't use anything from your motor. There is a complete motor on Ebay right now. If you could give me a couple of weeks ,I'm pretty sure I could find a running freshwater ( no saltwater) engine for $3-400. Plus aprox. $150 to truck ship to a business address. Isn't that a complete engine your buying now?

Carl - why so skeptical ? Others here say they have seen worse and seem more optimistic...Where are you located ? I will have all the parts I need ( aside from bearings and gaskets, etc... ) and yes - it is a complete motor I am buying- torn down, cleaned, magnafluxed, ready for rebuild...

Ball racing - thanks for the heads up - I will be on the lookout ( I have yet to dissassemble the crank / cam / pistons. etc..

Well, I just don't see the point in spending all the time to clean that engine up. Replacements are so plentiful and in so much better shape. It's been flooded ,frozen and neglected. You've already found a replacement complete and ready for the buildup. Can your rusty engine be salvaged? Sure. Any thing can be repaired, with enough time and money. At my age I find the time is more difficult to allocate than the funds
The stuff I have access to is all freshwater use so it is in much better shape than the salt water boats. I bought two running A4s for $700.00 complete with instrument panel , cables, engine controls, folding prop and shaft and all electrics. I knocked all the rust off them with a 1" wire brush in about 15 minutes put fresh oil and gas in them and fired them off. One had stuck pistons but about 2 hours work got it running.
I'm in Georgia.

I have to agree with Carl on this. Now that you have a good cleaned-up A4 on hand it should become the foundation for your rebuild. Still, I would clean up the old engine and save all usable parts - nothing like having good spares ready to go.

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The single most important thing you can do for your Atomic 4 is convert it to Fresh Water (antifreeze) Cooling.